“Tom, Dick, and Sally”

Poets Note: After positive results from genetic testing of persons claiming to descend from the union of Thomas Jefferson and his slave Sally Hemmings, the legitimate line that handles Jefferson’s estate argued that the test only proved that a Jefferson gene was found, not necessarily Thomas’.

First published in Puerto Rican Poetry: An Anthology from Aboriginal to Contemporary Times, edited by Roberto Márquez, U. of Massachusetts Press, 2007